News in Brief: A National Roundup

National Charter Alliance Names Top Leadership

A new national association that aims to strengthen the charter
school movement has chosen its top leaders.

The National Charter School Alliance, a nonprofit organization based
in Washington, announced last week that Marc Dean Millot will serve as
its first president and chief executive officer. Mr. Millot is the
former president and founder of the Education Entrepreneurs Fund, the
social-investment affiliate of New American Schools. He also served as
the chief operating officer of NAS and as a Washington-based senior
social scientist for the RAND Corp.

Howard L. Fuller, the director of the Institute for the
Transformation of Learning, based at Marquette University in Milwaukee,
and a former superintendent of the Milwaukee public schools, will chair
the alliance's 22-member board of directors.

The alliance's goals are to be an advocate for charter schools on
federal policy issues, to act as a credible voice nationally for the
independent public schools, and to strengthen the organizational
capacity of the charter school movement. The group plans to continue
and expand on the work started by the Charter Friends National Network
in Minnesota. ("Alliance
Hopes to Serve as Voice for Charter Schools," Nov. 13, 2002.)

—Ann Bradley

Charges Filed in Probe of Thefts From D.C. Teachers' Union

Federal prosecutors in the District of Columbia filed criminal
charges last week against a man they said was a central player in the
alleged embezzlement of roughly $5 million from the Washington
Teachers' Union.

Michael M. Martin, 43, was charged with conspiracy to launder
$487,000 in union money through a company set up for that purpose,
according to court documents filed in a U.S. district court in
Washington. He allegedly billed the union for services provided by a
fictitious company, called Expressions Unlimited, and then returned
some of the money to top union officials.

Mr. Martin's lawyer did not return calls for comment. The charges
are considered as "criminal information," which is filed in felony
cases only with the consent of the defendant and indicates that Mr.
Martin may plead guilty.

Mr. Martin is one of a handful of union officials and their
relatives who have been accused of pilfering the coffers of the
5,000-member union in a scheme that ran from 1995 until last fall. He
served as former President Barbara A. Bullock's stylist and is married
to the daughter of Gwendolyn M. Hemphill, Ms. Bullock's personal
assistant.

Ms. Bullock, Ms. Hemphill, and former treasurer James O. Baxter have
stepped down. Leroy Holmes, a chauffeur for the union, has pleaded
guilty to charges in connection with the ongoing investigation.

Baltimore District, City Officials Cracking Down on School Fires

Baltimore school and fire department officials are taking steps to
crack down on a rash of fires at Southwestern High School.

The school has accounted for more than half the fires in the
95,000-student district's 172 schools over the past two months.

Twelve fires have been set in the hallways and restrooms of
Southwestern since the beginning of the year, according to a spokesman
for the city fire department. No one has been hurt in the fires, and
most have been small. Still, officials say, the fires have been
disruptive to the school and costly in manpower and money to the fire
department.

District schools chief Carmen V. Russo has said she is committed to
ending the fires and has been granted additional police at the
school.

Fire officials, meanwhile, have assigned three officers to work
primarily on the Southwestern High cases. They had arrested 16 students
as of last month.

—Bess Keller

Ga. District Eliminates Funding For Motivational Speaker's Job

School officials in DeKalb County, Ga., have decided not to renew a
contract with Danny Buggs, a former National Football League player who
has been a motivational speaker with the school system since 1982.

Mr. Buggs was suspended for three days without pay and ordered to
complete diversity training after allegedly making anti-gay comments at
a high school assembly last September. Public outcry was reignited
after he appeared at a recent school board meeting protesting an
amendment to the district's harassment policy that would include sexual
orientation.

Mary Stimmel, a spokeswoman for the 98,000-student district, said
Mr. Buggs' position was one of nearly 400 jobs the district expects to
cut because of budget constraints. "If you're looking to cut jobs," she
said, "you don't want to cut teachers, so a motivational speaker would
be among the first to go."

Superintendent Johnny E. Brown last week proposed a $704.2 million
budget for 2004. The final budget is scheduled to be approved May 12.
Mr. Buggs was unavailable for comment.

—Marianne D. Hurst

Kansas City District Sets Aside Money for Student Incentives

The Kansas City, Mo., school board has approved a budget of $379,250
to allow individual schools to provide incentives for students to do
well on state tests.

Each of the district's 66 schools can devise its own plan to
motivate students, including pizza parties, exemptions from wearing
uniforms, and movie passes, said Edwin Birch, the 27,000-student
district's director of public information.

Superintendent Bernard Taylor Jr. met with groups of middle and high
school students and their parents to devise the initiative, which seeks
to raise students' scores on Missouri Assessment Program tests. Mr.
Birch stressed that schools would not directly pay students for earning
good scores.

—Ann Bradley

N.M. Teachers Return to Work After Suspension for Anti-War Signs

Two teachers at Rio Grande High School in Albuquerque, N.M., have
returned to work after being suspended for displaying anti-war signs in
their classrooms. ("War
Lessons Call for Delicate Balance," March 26, 2003.)

English teacher Carmelita Roybal and art teacher Heather Duffy were
reinstated effective April 1, a spokesman for the 85,000-student
Albuquerque district said last week.

Meanwhile, two other teachers in the district were disciplined for
similar displays in their classrooms.

One of those teachers at Highland High School has returned to work
after agreeing to remove anti-war posters from his classroom. The other
teacher still had not completed a required hearing with district
officials as of late last week.

A school board policy committee is scheduled to discuss the
district's 20-year-old policy on teaching about controversial issues at
its April 14 meeting. The policy requires teachers to present a range
of views on such issues and to remove props and displays expressing
opinions after a lesson is complete.

—Kathleen Kennedy Manzo

Dallas Board Votes to Create Armed School Police Force

The Dallas school district has decided to form its own armed police
force, which will station officers in every middle and high school and
patrol every elementary school in the 166,000-student system.

District trustees approved the plan to expand the existing security
force by a vote of 7-2 on March 27.

The district now has a $900,000 contract with the Dallas Police
Department, which supplies 27 certified police officers to the schools.
Those officers, who are able to enforce the law but not district
policies, are assigned a number of different schools to patrol,
according to Manny Vasquez, the security chief for the district.

In addition, the district employs about 80 security guards who
enforce district policies, such as dress codes, but not the law, he
said. The new force will have 120 certified and armed police officers
and 80 security officers.

The transition to the new force will take five years and cost about
$1.5 million for additional salaries and equipment, Mr. Vasquez
said.

—Michelle Galley

Maryland School District Hires Former Yonkers, N.Y., Chief

The school board in Prince George's County, Md., voted 8-1 last week
to hire Andre J. Hornsby as the 134,000-student district's next
superintendent.

Mr. Hornsby, 49, a former top administrator in the New York City
schools and a former superintendent of the Yonkers, N.Y., district,
will replace Iris T. Metts. Ms. Metts, whose contract expires in June,
has led the suburban Washington district since 1999.

The board offered Mr. Hornsby a four-year contract that will pay him
$250,000 a year. He also serves as the president of the National
Alliance of Black School Educators.

—Ann Bradley

Seattle Superintendent Facing Two Employee Polls on Future

Superintendent Joseph Olchefske faced two districtwide no-
confidence votes last week as anger over the Seattle public schools'
budget plight continued to fester.

Both the teachers' union and the district principals' association
polled their members on whether they believed the schools chief should
stay or go. Mr. Olchefske has been under fire since October, when he
revealed that the district had overspent its budget by $22 million last
year and was headed for a $12 million gap this year. The system's
annual budget is about $440 million. ("Budget Shortfall Fuels Dissension
in Seattle Over Superintendent," Nov. 13, 2002.)

Results announced last Friday by the Seattle Education Association,
an affiliate of the National Education Association, showed overwhelming
support for Mr. Olchefske's ouster. The Principals Association of
Seattle Schools expects to announce its results next week.

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